After Jack
by Pink Pandoracorn
Summary: The story didn't end just because Jack and the Warrior died... Written from Maya's and Gaige's POV. Rewrite!
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: None of this is mine. Way to go, Gearbox!**

**A/N: So I was re-reading this, and decided it needed some hefty editing. Hefty editing ahoy! It won't be updated nearly as fast as it was the first time around, but you all already know what happens ;)**

* * *

**Maya**

"Slow down, man- I nearly bought it back there. Hey- Lilith!" Mordecai and Brick were shuffling towards us. They looked pretty rough- bruises, scrapes, clothes torn even more than normal- and they were leaning so heavily on each other that I wasn't sure who was supporting who. But they were alive. "Thank fuck," I murmured to myself. I couldn't... After everything I'd done, everything I'd seen... After Roland, Bloodwing... I couldn't lose any more friends.

I stood facing where Lilith had, only moments ago, been suspended in the air, wrapped in agony. I wanted to go to her, to comfort her, but I knew it wouldn't be welcome. Not here, not in front of everyone. This was Pandora, she had to be tough- at least she thought she did. And after what she'd just been through, I wasn't going to give her any shit over it.

"Where were you guys five minutes ago?! If it weren't for these guys, we'd all be dead!" Lilith chided them. I could only see her profile, she was facing them as they made their way towards us. Still, though, I could tell she was happy- relieved?- to see them. I'd known them for months, she'd known them for years. They were her family.

"I think that's her way of saying we won." The two came to a stop in front of her. They looked even worse up close. One of Mordecai's goggle-lenses was cracked, Brick looked sure to have several new scars on his arms. They'd found some Anshin, neither was openly bleeding. At least, not much.

"I figured that," Mordecai replied, waving Brick off.

I had to smile- we were all alive. We'd done it. We were alive and Jack was dead. Except we weren't all alive. Roland... I felt a pang of sadness. I hadn't known him as long as Brick, Lilith, and Mordecai, but I knew he'd be proud of us. And Bloodwing...

But this wasn't a time for sadness. This was a time for celebrating. Lilith was free. The Warrior was dead. Jack was DEAD. Lilith had killed him. Fitting, I thought. He deserved to suffer the way he'd made her suffer, but this... This was almost as good. I resisted the urge to kick his lifeless body right in the balls. I only hoped that, wherever he was, he was being tormented.

A movement out of the corner of my eye pulled my attention up from the lifeless body. Brick had motioned Axton over to him. "Come here, Slab." He transferred Mordecai's weight to the smaller man.

"What the hell, Brick?" Mordecai asked, and I could see the echo of a similar question in the commando's eyes.

Brick appeared not to hear, at the very least he was ignoring Mordecai. His eyes closed on me. Something dark, hungry, was in those eyes and I backed up a step or two before one of the rocks littering the floor hit my back. I'd seen that look before a few times, but never from him.

I was still riding the adrenaline from the fight, from Jack's more-than-timely demise, and I could feel my body responding to that look. Even as he walked- limped- toward me and I pressed my hands against the rock behind me, I could feel almost a magnetic pull between us. The air was thick, hot, almost oppressive. My gaze ranged slowly up the dusty vest and closed on his lips. _Lust_.

Normally, he wasn't the kind of man I would identify as my type. He was larger than anyone I'd ever met before. He was a fighter more than a thinker, and deep down, he had the warmest heart of anyone I'd ever met before. And somehow, looking up at him in that moment, I found myself realizing that maybe I was in desperate need of some warmth.

"Come here, girl," he growled, the normal bass of his voice dropped even deeper with his obvious desire. He reached out and grasped me with one hand on each side of my waist, lifting me up easily until I was sitting on the rock I'd backed into.

Even with me sitting on the rock, however, he towered over me. I peered up into his face, but I didn't have long to wonder at what he was going to do before he bent down and his lips claimed mine.

The kiss was vicious, savage, triumphant. My hands first gripped at the front of his vest, then I found myself snaking my arms around his neck and wrapping my legs around his waist. He pressed me backwards, just a little, and when our tongues met I felt a hot jolt deep in my belly.

The deft seduction of his tongue started an ache, a desperate longing I hadn't felt since Jack had taken me to his hotel room all that time ago. Everything else faded around us. I wanted him, he wanted me, and if he'd started pulling my clothes off right then- in front of everyone- I wouldn't have stopped him.

I raked my fingernails across the back of his neck and down over his hard biceps, and I was grinding myself against him, trying to gain some friction to relieve the desperate ache between my legs. I wanted more. I wanted skin. I wanted...

It wasn't until he righted me and straightened, pulling away from me, that I noticed Gaige was yelling at us to get a room.

I realized very suddenly where we were. I closed my eyes for a long moment when I realized that I'd been doing my level best to try and get him to take me in a manly fashion just beside the body of the Warrior and right in front of all of our friends. I wanted to disappear into the rock I'd been sitting on. Unfortunately, that wasn't exactly an option. I settled on crossing my legs and perching on the rock, trying to look dignified- like I wanted to be there and Brick's placing me there and trying to climb inside my body through my mouth had been a convenient way to get there. I couldn't look at Brick. I was afraid that if I looked at him, I would jump down from the rock and throw myself at him, undoing any pretense of dignity I had left.

How embarrassing that I- the siren, the one who was supposed to be calm and serene and all that happy shit- was trying to get him to mount me in public, and he- the berserker who wasn't supposed to have control over himself at all- was the one to pull away. I was never going to hear the end of this from anyone, was I?

Lilith was talking again; she said something else, and then a large star map appeared in the air above her, but I found it really hard to focus. Truthfully, I found it a little hard to breathe. I sat on the rock dumbly, staring at my Maliwan SMG without really seeing it. I was resting it on my knee now, giving me something to focus on that wasn't the heat in Brick's eyes, or the smug look that was on the faces of almost all of my other friends.

"Amiga, join in the looting!" Salvador shouted. I looked up, and Brick, Lilith, and Mordecai were gone. The rest of my companions were picking through the loot that had exploded from the Warrior's body.

I shook my head to clear it and jumped down off the rock, landing easily on my feet. I looked at all the pretty guns, but my mind just wasn't on them.

It was natural, I kept telling myself. It was natural that adrenaline and bloodlust would turn into the good old-fashioned physical lust in an effort to expend itself. It was normal human reaction. Normal siren reaction. The fact that no one else seemed on the verge of tearing each other's clothes off didn't mean anything. No one had really seen Gaige as sexually desirable since... Come to think of it, I wasn't sure Roland even had. I'd been to one to see them that one time, and... I was pretty sure nothing else had happened since then. I knew she looked at Axton from time to time, but who _didn't_ look at Axton, honestly? At any rate, he'd said something to her shortly after we'd gotten to Sanctuary that had put him firmly in her _friends_ column. And Gaige and I were the only girls left in the room, and only Axton really seemed to be interested in other men. So it was natural that I was the only one who had tried to get someone else to fuck me in front of everyone else.

To be honest, I'd never really thought about him like that before. After Jack, though, I hadn't really wanted to think about anyone else like that for a long time. That had shaken me up pretty badly.

"What?" Axton had asked me a question, and I hadn't heard him. Though from the look on his face, it probably didn't bear repeating.

"If you want someone to finish what he didn't..." He trailed off, a smirk on his face.

"You're a generous soul, Axton," I replied drily.

"What can I say, I'm a giver." He winked at me. "You just seem to have a little trouble focusing, that's all."

"I'm fine," I insisted.

"Uh huh. I happen to know that this," and he pulled out an explosive pistol, "is better than the one currently strapped to that sweet ass. And you just passed on by it like you hadn't seen it. Why is that, I wonder?"

I snatched the gun from him and peered at it. He was right, it was better than the pistol I was currently using as my secondary weapon. "Thank you," I said, just a little begrudgingly.

"Uh huh. If you change your mind, you know where I sleep." Another wink, and then he was gone.

The woman who'd landed on Pandora would have been all over that like a skag on skag tongues. I was no longer that woman, though. She'd been left in a shitty hotel room beside a dead body that hadn't stayed dead, and I wasn't looking for her to come back any time soon. She'd been a little naïve. It was natural, of course, raised- trapped- in a monastery for the majority of my life had left me a little sheltered. Sheltered, though, didn't cut it on Pandora. Naive was a veritable death sentence.

I traded the new pistol out for my old one and turned my attention back to the guns on the floor, trying to focus a little better. I'd already almost passed up one upgrade, it wouldn't do to pass up another one. And I was looking for a new book, too. I had been for a while.

I didn't see anything else I wanted, though. Not to keep. We loaded up an empty crate with as many of the better unwanted weapons as we could, Marcus would pay for them. He liked selling better than buying, but buying from us meant he didn't have to deal with off-world suppliers.

Krieg was surprising good at carrying full crates- maybe not so surprisingly, considering his muscles had muscles. Between he and Zer0, they got the crate back to the fast-travel station, and then we all paused awkwardly for a moment before heading back to Sanctuary. I don't think anyone was really ready to go home yet.

"Let's go to Moxxi's. I'll buy the first round," I offered.


	2. Chapter 2

**Maya**

I picked up my cocoa and crossed to where Lilith was sitting at the table, waiting for me. We were having some unofficial Girl Time. Gaige had politely declined- the announcement, "Sca-rew this, I'd rather tinker with my bot," had come up- so it was just the two of us. Gaige still had a hard time socializing with women. She'd never really had the chance to finish high school and realize that we're not all back-stabbing bitches. She was getting there. Slowly.

The past couple of weeks had been quiet. There was a huge celebration for us when we got back, of course, and then Roland's funeral- Bloodwing's too- and now... Now we were settling in again. Losing Jack had been a huge blow to Hyperion, and they were keeping to themselves. The bandits were afraid, I think. Not just one siren, but two... They didn't want to tangle with us. I couldn't blame them. And I was more than a little glad of the respite.

With all the free time, I had more time to think about... Non-combat-related things. After my escape from the Brothers, I'd spent some time 'catching up for lost time.' Except then I'd been incredibly stupid and had slept with Jack, and then got a little shy about getting physical. When we'd first met, Axton had offered to, well, what Axton offered to everyone. He was a flirt, and he wasn't too particular about who he flirted with.

I pulled out the chair and sat down heavily, lowering my mug to rest it on the table. "Is it always like this?"

She started as though I'd surprised her, and then peered at me with her yellow eyes. "What?"

I sighed, running a finger down the smooth exterior of the mug. "All the guys tend to forget you're, you know, a woman?" Pain flickered in her eyes for a moment, and I shook my head. "Shit, Lil, I'm sorry." And there I went being nice and insensitive.

"It is. Just like that, I mean." She shrugged. "It was murder trying to get Roland to see me as a woman instead of 'the siren,' or just another one of the guys. And then he did..."

"Sorry, Lil," I repeated. I covered the hand that was sitting on the table with one of mine, and pressed it in sympathy. She squeezed my fingers gratefully. Losing Roland had been really hard on her. She barely had time to think about it, now that she was head of the Crimson Raiders... and I had to bring it up again. "Did you want to talk about it?"

She completely ignored the question; instead she smiled, although the expression didn't reach her eyes. "It's fine. It's tough being a woman." The tentative smile turned into a wicked grin. "I thought you and Brick..." her tone was teasing.

I pulled my hand back and cradled my mug in both hands, staring intently into the hot brown liquid so I didn't have to meet her eyes. "Not even close. He's barely even talked to me since... since. And when he does, he's all, 'Slab-this,' and 'Slab-that.' I guess it was just a celebration thing." It hurt. We'd basically been one step away from sweaty naked times- in front of everyone- and now I was the same to him as Salvador.

We saw each other regularly, of course. He was spending more time in Sanctuary now, and Sanctuary was entirely too small to hide from someone. Although Gaige seemed to be fairly good at it when she wanted- maybe it was because she was smaller.

It was her turn to wince. "Damn, Maya, I'm sorry. It's tough," she repeated. "What about Axton? He's never hit on ya?"

I choked on my cocoa. "Yeah," I said when I could breathe again. He had, but, well, he hit on everyone. In fact, I was fairly certain that he'd spent most of his evening when we got back from killing the warrior trying to charm his way into someone's pants. Anyone's pants. "He _is_ pretty. I do _not_ have time for his ego."

A throat cleared. I closed my eyes, wishing my phaselock worked on myself. I could just use it and float out the window. Mordecai had the worst possible timing. I hoped he hadn't heard any of that. All of that.

"I hope I'm not interrupting," he said, and I opened my eyes to see him easily lower his lanky body into a chair and lean back, one foot crossed over the other knee, hands clasped loosely behind his head.

"Just me whining," I replied quickly. "Nothing important. I'm thinking of hitting up the Info Stockade again. See if I can find more information on sirens." I'd been planning a run there for a little over a week. I'd gone through all of the information the Crimson Raiders had, and it sure wasn't much.

Lilith nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, the info we have... Well, it sucks. I'm sure Jack wrote down all kinds of things. He was real big on recording everything that came out of his mouth." She'd been in a position to know. She looked at me closely, concerned. "You're not going alone are you?"

I shook my head. "No. Zer0 and Krieg are coming with me." Zer0 was tired of the inactivity, and Krieg... I was fairly certain that Krieg would have followed me anywhere. Literally. Anywhere. I took a swallow of my cocoa. "That's another reason I want to go. I want to see if they have anything on Krieg. There's more to him than just..."

At that moment, we heard him yelling from outside about the 'poop train.' I gestured. "That." I rested my cup on the table. "I figure I'll get Zer0 up on the roof with his sniper rifle and Krieg can run around inside and make sure no one gets in."

Lilith nodded at my plan. Mordecai stayed silent, no surprise there. He wasn't really a talker. Someone else had something to say, though. "If you're making a barricade, you need a Brick," I heard the rich, booming voice say. He laughed at his own pun and I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment. "Can't have my favorite Slab going off so close to Hyperion on her own."

I opened my eyes again to meet Lilith's and raised an eyebrow. This. This is exactly what I was talking about. She stifled a smile in her own cup, but I could see the corners of her lips turn up. After she took a drink and swallowed, she shook her head a little. "Yeah, Maya. It's tough."

"What's tough?" Brick lowered himself gingerly into the final seat at the table, looking between us expectantly.

Lilith's eyes fastened on me, and she was grinning. One eyebrow raised in question. "Nothing," I said quickly. The thought of Mordecai overhearing was embarrassing enough. The idea of talking about it with the very source of my problem wasn't exactly appealing.

"When were you thinkin' of going?" Mordecai asked.

"This afternoon. I don't think there's anything going on here that I need to stick around for?" It was a question. Lilith had taken over the position as leader of the Crimson Raiders, and sometimes she needed me to help out with the training. Apparently, though, she and Tannis were working on rigging up a whole training facility, and she needed me less and less.

"No, it's fine. You go on ahead. Have fun. Learn things." She was dismissing me, and from the look of the smile she was very ineffectively hiding behind her own mug, she was quite amused at Brick inserting himself into my expedition.

I closed my eyes for a long moment before looking over at Brick. "Do you have anything you need to get before we go?"

"I keep my fists on me all the time. I'm pretty... Handy." He thought he was hilarious.

I drained my mug down to the dregs and set it on the table. "Guess we should get going, then."

Brick stood up. "This is gonna be fun!" My enthusiasm waned, just a little.

* * *

It was hot in what had formerly been Fyrestone. I always felt a pang going through the rubble of the old town. I knew that was where they had started- Brick, Mordecai, Lilith and Roland. It hadn't been rebuilt, it was just piles of trash and puddles of slag, and had been ever since Jack had come through and destroyed it.

Jack. He'd called himself "Handsome Jack," but even in my head, I just couldn't. The handsome part had just been a mask that hid all of the ugliness inside... And he'd eventually shown everyone- _everyone_- that ugliness. His own daughter had wanted to die rather than to continue to be another pawn in his twisted game.

We walked along in silence- save for Krieg's occasional shouts and mutters. Soon enough, we reached the large freight elevator, and I turned it on. It whirred as it took us up to the elevated road that led to the Info Stockade. The last time we'd come this way, there had been constructors and loaders- including a particularly large loader by the name of Saturn- and all sorts of things waiting to kill us. I remembered that fight. My phaselock hadn't been able to do much, but Krieg and Zer0 had devastated it at close range.

This time, however, the way there was was practically deserted. There were two engineers halfheartedly working, quickly dispatched by Krieg's buzz-axe. I almost felt bad for them. Almost.

We walked up the few flights of stairs to where the access terminal was, and I knelt in front of it. "Slab, watch the door!" Brick ordered Krieg, and I heard Krieg go back down the way we came.

Zer0 pulled himself onto the ladder leading up to the roof. "I'll watch from above/kill anyone who gets close/do not take too long." He disappeared above us.

I plugged my ECHO into the computer terminal, and started scanning for information. There was a lot about sirens, and I saw Angel's name come up a number of times. I transferred it all to my ECHO. Growing up with monks had left me with a love of research, and I was eager to find out more about who- what- I was.

I searched for Krieg's name, and was a little surprised to see he had an entire file. I added that to the transfer to my ECHO.

I glanced behind me. Brick was lounged against the partition separating the computer terminal from the rest of the room. He was watching me intently, arms folded. I was suddenly very aware of exactly how my pants spread tight over my ass as I crouched there...

He was... Well, he was Brick. He was a mountain of a man, his dark clothes had to have been specially tailored to fit him. His hammer was swung up on his back and he looked ready for a fight. Then again, he always looked ready for a fight.

And yet there was a... gentleness wasn't the right word. There had been nothing gentle or soft about the way he'd kissed me. Tenderness, maybe? I shook my head like I was shaking away the thoughts.

"Sorry," I said with a shrug when I realized I'd been staring, just as much as he had. To be fair, I hadn't been staring at his ass. "I warned you this was going to be boring." I had, right before we left Sanctuary.

"It's not so bad. And I'm sure Hyperion is gonna show up with things for me to punch." He grinned at the idea. "They lost Angel. They lost Lilith. I bet they're just itchin' to get their hands on another siren." I saw his biceps flex. "And it's _not_ gonna be you," he finished fiercely.

"Transfer complete," the Hyperion computer voice said, letting me know the files were done. I turned back to the terminal.

"Hyperion comes/they have some badass loaders/we need to move on," came the warning from above.

"Yeah," I called to him to confirm I'd heard. I had one more thing to search for... Aha. Found it. I copied it onto my ECHO and pulled it away from the machine. "Done!" I called.

Brick had gone back to watching me silently. When I started moving, he jumped down the topmost flight of stairs, landing with a heavy thud that shook the building, then ran the rest of the way down to join Krieg in what was becoming a battle at the door.

I followed, though I took the stairs instead of jumping over them. When I got to the bottom, I reached out my left arm and a badass loader floated up in the air, suspended in my bubble of elemental torment. The rest flew towards it and shared the slag and electricity. I fired at it, the corrosive bullets absolutely tearing the loaders apart.

I could hear the distinctive sound of Zer0's sniper rifle and loaders fell as he hit their critical points.

Between the four of us, it wasn't long before they were all dispatched. It had been almost a halfhearted attack, as if Hyperion knew they were obligated to, and knew just as well that they didn't really stand a chance.

It was time to go home.


	3. Chapter 3

**Maya**

The next little while was spent studying the files that I'd taken from the Info Stockade. There was a surprising amount of information, Hyperion kept very thorough files on everything. Then again, I guess it's easier to subjugate people when you know everything about them.

I was sitting at one of the desks in what Lilith insisted on calling the War Room, staring at my ECHO. I'd searched for this particular file on impulse, but from what I was reading, it had been an excellent decision. I barely even finished reading it before I grabbed my ECHO off the desk and took off towards Moxxi's bar at almost a run. I knew someone who needed to see this.

It was fully bright outside, of course, the night cycle wasn't due to start for hours. My boots struck the hard streets audibly as I raced through the floating city. It didn't take too long to get to Moxxi's, of course.

I pushed my way past the people hanging out at the door and scanned the bar for the familiar lanky man. He was sitting in his usual booth, half a dozen bottles in front of him. Every so often he would look up at Moxxi and mutter to himself. This wasn't unusual, he usually ended up here every day, doing the exact same thing.

For Moxxi's part, she was ignoring him. She could have tossed him out on his ass, but I think she felt sorry for him. He really had nowhere else to go, nothing else to do.

I made my way over to him, stopping just beside the table. I held out the ECHO to him. "Mordecai, I found something."

"I'd say you found... me," he slurred at me, saluting me with his bottle. I thought the whole thing was more for effect than that he was actually drunk enough to slur. The man drank like he was trying to do it for a living, but he knew that it was more likely that he would be left alone if he was acting drunk.

I shook my head impatiently and slid into the booth across from him. "No, I'm serious. You need to see this."

He roughly pushed my ECHO away as I put it on the table in front of him, in between his bottles. "I ain't lookin' at nothin'. Can't hardly see nothin' in here anyway because THE LIGHT IS SO BAD," he called the last part in the general direction of the bar. I could almost see Moxxi rolling her eyes behind me. I almost joined her. For a cutting remark, that was pretty weak.

I sighed in exasperation. "No, Mordecai, it's Bloodwing."

He stopped. Stopped talking, stopped drinking, stopped glaring at Moxxi. "What?" he breathed. I had his full attention.

I set my ECHO device down on the table, and slid it across to him. "Here." I tapped the screen. "Bloodwing, Mordecai. Just read it."

I watched his dark eyes scan the screen as he read it over, and the color drained from his face. "Where did this come from?"

"Info Stockade. I looked it up on a whim, I figured if there was going to be any more information on her, it would be there." I folded my arms on the table in front of me. "Jack was pretty... fixated on her, I think. Almost as much as he was on Lilith."

"Yeah. Can I..."

"Copy it? Of course. I didn't get it for myself."

He pulled out his own ECHO device and transferred the file from mine to his. He stood and left, tossing some money on the bar as he went, all thoughts of drinking himself into a stupor again apparently gone.

"Thanks, sugar," I heard Moxxi call from the bar. "Some days he's just so hard... to take." With the right inflection, she turned the statement into an innuendo, of course, but I think that was more from habit than anything else. I was pretty sure that she was relieved that he was gone.

I picked up my ECHO and went over to her. "Did you hear?" I asked, settling onto one of the bar chairs.

"Thought I heard you say Bloodwing." She leaned forward on the bar to talk to me. It was the middle of the afternoon and there was really no one else in there, not including the crowd standing around in front of the door. "I'd be real grateful if it was true. All he does now is sit in here and drink and yell at me. I feel bad for the poor kid. He's lost... Well, everything, sugar."

He'd lost Moxxi herself- to Jack- over Bloodwing, but I didn't think now was the time to be pointing that out.

"I know. The file indicated that there might be... something there. 'Reproduced specimen.' I'm not all that up on my science jargon, but it sounds pretty promising. If it is, though, he'll have something again soon." Apparently when Jack had taken Bloodwing, he'd had samples of her DNA taken as well. Jack never did anything halfway. If he was going to have Bloodwing, he was going to see if he could make himself a little flock of Bloodwings. He was such an _ass_.

"That would be real good. I hate seeing him just wastin' away in here." Her eyes turned somewhat calculating as she looked at me. "Course, if he was getting' laid on the regular, he'd be a little happier, too."

I nodded. Sex did have a way of making things more pleasant. And frustration had a way of making things less pleasant. I'd sure had my fair share of that, recently. The latter, that is, not the former. But I had my research to distract myself with, and Mordecai had... drinking.

"Can't help but notice you don't have anyone between those gorgeous legs of yours."

"No." I poked at the bartop with one gloved finger. "I do not." I felt her watching me, and when I looked up, I saw the suggestion in her eyes. "Oh, no." I knew exactly where she was going with this, and it wasn't anywhere I wanted her to go.

She shrugged, her ample bosom jiggling almost entrancingly with the movement. "Don't see why not, You're both unattached. You haven't been laid since you fucked my ex, and I know one particular man is givin' you more trouble than he's worth."

I stared at her for a minute or so. "Is there anything you don't know?"

She laughed, that suggestive throaty chuckle. "I hear just about everything. I'm pretty sure that's what Jack wanted from me. Man like that..." She shook her head, as if chasing away the past. "Just between you and me, Mordecai's pretty good in the sack. Long fingers, if you know what I mean." She chuckled again. "Course, if you tell him I said that, he'll say you're lying. We didn't exactly part on the best of terms."

I knew exactly what terms they had parted on, and again chose discretion. "I just don't think that's a good idea."

"Suit yourself, sugar. Gets awful lonely out here sometimes, though." She shook her head and moved away, which I took as my cue to leave.

* * *

The next discovery from my stolen files was no less exciting. I swiveled my chair towards where Lilith was standing and staring at her map. It didn't seem so much like she was studying it, as she was lost in thought and looking at it

She noticed the movement and frowned, though I didn't think she was frowning at me. "You found something."

I nodded. "I've been looking at what they had on Krieg. There's a lot of stuff here about him, but it's very technical and science-y. From what I'm gathering, though, Krieg's name used to be Kevin."

"Kevin?" she repeated, shaking her head. "He doesn't look like a Kevin."

He didn't really look like anyone, though. I wondered where the name Krieg had come from. Maybe if we could get his mind sorted out, he would be able to tell us.

I nodded again. "I'm going to need help with the rest of it, but I'm pretty sure Tannis isn't doing anything that she can't be distracted from." Tannis and Lilith had mostly finished putting together their training course- Scooter was doing the last of it- so she had some free time.

Lilith's frown grew. She turned towards me, leaning her hip against the table and folding her arms in front of her. "Tannis? Are you sure she's going to help you out?"

I could understand her incredulity. Tannis seemed to do whatever she wanted at any given time. The right phrasing would make her more willing to help. I shrugged. "I think she'll find the subject matter pretty compelling. She likes digging around in people's brains." And if phrasing didn't work... "Or I'll bribe her with some blood samples."

Lilith's frown turned into a grin. "Even better if you can get her some more eridium to play with." That was a good idea. I was pretty sure I could get my hands on some if I wanted to, or at least Crazy Earl could. I was pretty sure that was one of the big reasons Tannis stuck around, she thought sirens- and their possible link to eridium and vaults- were utterly fascinating.

"I'll keep that one up my sleeve." I smiled and picked up the ECHO, heading downstairs to find the introverted scientist.

She was bent over her own ECHO, talking about the distinct lack of adequate filtration for her ceiling chair. Just the one, apparently the other one had been tortured to death. Every time I looked at her, I was more and more grateful that Jack had died. "Excuse me, Patricia."

She looked up at me. "Yes? What is it?" She had the air of barely tolerating my so-rude interruption. That was just her way. At least she actually spoke to me instead of screaming and drooling until I went away. I'd seen other people try and interact with her... It wasn't pretty.

I handed her my ECHO. "Just look at this."

She started scanning it, and just a couple of lines down, her eyes lit up like I'd just handed over a large chunk of chocolate. She even licked her lips. "Where did you get this?"

"Info Stockade." I leaned against one of her workbenches. "Can you do something with it? Maybe help him?"

"Yes!" she exclaimed happily. "To delve into the depths of another's madness..." She looked up at me. "I must copy this!"

At my nod, she transferred the file from my ECHO to her own. She was almost giddy.

I retrieved my ECHO and she'd already dismissed me in her mind, eagerly reading the file I'd found on Krieg.

Most of what had been done to him was psychological torture, from what I gathered. Some physical, of course, but it was like they'd wanted to break down his mind while building up his body. And, of course, there'd been slag involved. There'd been notes from Jack- Lilith was right about him wanting to record every thought that came out of his head- that he was potentially making 'elimination forces', which I figured meant Krieg and others like him were going to be sent around to indiscriminately kill everyone who didn't live in Opportunity. More evidence of Jack not doing anything halfway. He could never have just one of something.

The file ended with the phrase, "Experiment terminated." The experiment had ended, but obviously Krieg hadn't been killed. So how had he come to the train station where I found him? Maybe if Tannis was able to dig his inner calm out of the raging psycho that we all usually saw, maybe we could find out.

There _was_ more to him. Every so often you could hear a calm voice, softer than his normal voice, talking about how he deserved this. Telling people to run. I was convinced it had been that part of him that got him to tell me about the rats.

I climbed the stairs again and saw Lilith, absorbed in her map-staring, so I settled down for more research. Sirens.


	4. Chapter 4

**Maya**

"Slab!" Brick greeted me enthusiastically as I digitally reconstructed on the grass of Thousand Cuts. "Good to see you!"

I eyed him for a minute before returning a smile. So I was still, _Slab_. That was... not unexpected, still disappointing. Behind him I could see Axton, Salvador, Gaige, Zer0, and Krieg, waiting with various degrees of patience and boredom on their faces. "Hi, Brick." I was probably imagining things, but it seemed like his eyes were lingering on the bare part of my hip. I cleared my throat. "Where are we going?"

"Hyperion's got themselves set up at the Bunker again, they've been shootin' at us with mortars again. Pain in my ass!"

I pulled my SMG out and made sure it was fully loaded. "Let's go!" I'm always up for killing Hyperion.

We headed up the mountain. We'd been up that way before. That particular trip had ended with Roland dying and Lilith getting captured by Jack. I gripped my SMG just a little tighter. It sure as hell wasn't going to end like that again.

They came at us, loaders mostly. Apparently we'd decimated their human troops pretty badly, but they just kept churning out the loaders. They were set up along the mountain like they were waiting for us- which they probably were. They had to know we weren't going to let them just sit there and bomb the shit out of Brick's town.

My bullets tore into the joints of a loader's arm until it shredded off, and I lifted it into a phaselock before holding the trigger until it exploded in a mess of metal. I could hear Krieg screaming, "OPEN YOUR VEINS!" as he happily bashed loaders apart with his buzz-axe.

"Turret out!" I heard from somewhere ahead of me, as Axton threw his turret decks to cling to a nearby wall. They immediately started pumping bullets and rockets into the fray until everything was dripping with slag.

Sal was humming loudly as he unloaded both guns, and I could hear DeathTrap's metallic voice somewhere.

We were efficiently decimating the waves of loaders sent at us. This couldn't be it, could it? Surely they'd put up a harder fight than this. I was barely breaking a sweat. And then I heard the heavy settling of the larger, yellow super badass loaders. "Badass!" I called.

More than one. Shit. I lifted one into a phaselock, and the softly glowing bubble of purple-blue pulled the others toward it. They rattled together before settling on the ground again, distracted on a little from their purpose.

Brick ran up beside me, panting a little from exertion. "We've got to get to the top, Slab," he told me, clapping a hand against my back. I nodded, emptying my clip into the floating super badass and reloading as it settled back down on the ground.

They were all trained at me, and I dived behind a concrete divider as they simultaneously began unloading their deadly fire missiles at me.

"Ghosting," I heard Zero's steady voice, and then the unmistakable mechanical protestations as a loader was killed. One down, two more.

I poked my head around my concrete divider and lifted a second one in the air, taking grim satisfaction as it showered slag and sparks onto its companion. "Shut up!"

"DIEDIEDIE!" Krieg screamed, charging in to meet both of them.

"Anarchy!" Gaige called from somewhere to my left, and I knew she was lost to her killing frenzy.

We made short work of them, and then there were no more. "There's a big-ass mortar, up at the top," Brick shouted and surged on up the mountain. I pulled myself up from my crouch and jogged after him. I heard the unmistakable whine as my shield powered back up. Good.

Axton scooped up his turret and loped along beside me. "This is too easy," he called over the noise of our feet hitting the concrete, our weapons shifting around against our bodies.

I nodded. It was too easy. Hyperion was pissed at Brick. To be fair, they were pissed at all of us, but Brick being out here on his own made him an easier target than the rest of us. If they were going to level a Slab-Town flattening assault, it would not be capped off by a few loaders, super badasses though they were.

We were almost at the plateau at the top of the mountain. A short trip through the cave, and we could get up to dismantle the weapon. "Did we bring anything to bomb out the elevator with?" I called ahead to Brick, and he shook his head, any response lost in the noise of our advance. We were going to need to do that. Maybe someone could talk to Tiny Tina- I bet she'd be _more_ than happy to come up here and drop explosives down the shaft.

I grabbed Gaige's arm and pulled her behind me. "Get cover!" I yelled as a barrage of rockets flew into the spot she'd been standing just seconds before. Some of the shrapnel bounced off my shield and I jumped back down the stairs, ducking under the overhang above.

Gaige crouched beside me. "What the fuck was that thing?" she asked, pulling out a grenade. She threw it around the corner and ducked back down beside me. "Homing," she said, and grinned as the explosions rocked us.

"Huge-ass loader. Like Saturn." I couldn't see our friends, but they had to be there. I ran up the stairs and phaselocked the massive loader. It was too big to rise in the air, but it started taking damage. I fired a few shots before ducking back down the stairs, barely escaping the rockets.

"That thing is _not_ playing around!" I exclaimed, a little out-of-breath. We were going to need some sort of strategy for this thing. Any time it saw one of us, it would just start shooting those rockets. I had a pretty good feeling that the rockets would decimate a shield generator. The shields on Axton's turrets were a little sturdier, maybe he could provide enough cover to get more than two or three shots off?

Gaige activated DeathTrap, and we watched the bot head up the stairs and around the corner, intent on murder. "Son of a whore!" she exclaimed, and made a face. It had obliterated DeathTrap.

I heard gun fire, I heard grenades. I stuck my head up and shot at it some more. The ground under it was being showered by shrapnel as we tore into. It settled itself and aimed another rocket barrage at me and I didn't get back fast enough. It knocked out my shield and I took some shrapnel from the rocket to my left arm. I screamed.

"You ok?" Gaige yelled at me.

I nodded with a grimace. Without a proper phaselock, I wouldn't be able to siphon healing from it. My arm was a mess of blood and shrapnel and shredded skin, but at least it hadn't broken anything, I thought. At least I still had my fucking arm. Adrenaline kept me from feeling most of it, but it was still numb and useless. I pulled out my Torgue pistol and poked my head out to shoot some more. I ducked back in time this time.

I heard another scream of pain. Krieg. I wasn't sure if he'd been hit by the massive loader or if he'd been hitting himself again. I wanted to get to him to heal but I didn't know where he was... and I was probably useless for healing anyway, with my arm all mangled. "You got any Anshin on you?"

Gaige shook her head, watching the steady trail of blood I was dripping on the ground. "Fuck, Maya!" She tossed another grenade up, over the overhang.

"Move, Gaige. Give it more targets," I gritted at her, and she nodded briefly. "I'll give you cover, you think you can run up behind that wall?" It would be able to move to target her once it had settled down to fire at me. That was the drawback of these big things- they hurt a lot, but they had shitty mobility.

"Yeah."

"Okay." I peeked up at it. More shots. I couldn't lift my arm to phaselock, but I could still shoot it. It settled down, trained on me again, and I heard the whir of the rockets powering up. "Go!" I yelled, and she scurried across the opening at the top of the stairs, getting cover behind the wall before it started firing. I ducked back out of range.

Deathtrap must have recharged. He was above me, powering up my shields the rest of the way, and then he was headed off towards the loader.

We whittled away at it, until at last it squealed to death. The mountain shook with explosion. I swore, picking up my Maliwan from where I'd dropped it on the ground to hold it awkwardly in one hand.

"Is anyone hurt?" Axton called from above us.

"Yeah," I shouted back, but everyone else yelled they were fine.

Axton rounded the corner and came to where I was sitting on the stairs and looked at my arm. His mouth set into a hard line. "You ok, sweetheart?" he asked.

I knew from the term of endearment that he was worried about me. I nodded. It was a lie, and we both knew it. My arm dangled limply beside me. Even with Anshin serum, it was to the point where I'd have new scars creasing my siren's tattoos. "Fine. We need to go destroy that mortar." I felt slightly detached from my arm. Shock.

He looked at my arm again and pulled me to my feet with the other one. "Just go slow," he advised. "Don't bounce around too much. We see any Anshin, you take it."

I nodded, teeth set against the pain that seared through me when I moved. Don't bounce it around, yeah. Done. I wished I could phaselock myself and float the rest of the way up the mountain.

Axton helped me ease up the stairs where everyone else was waiting. Brick frowned when he saw me. "Damn, Slab-" he started, reaching toward me.

I shook my head. "I'll be fine. We need to destroy that mortar."

"Sweetheart, you stay here," Axton suggested. "You can still shoot, right? You guard the entrance, make sure no one else comes up."

I nodded. That plan sounded fantastic. We both knew no one else would be coming up the mountain after us. I lowered myself gingerly to the ground, trying my level best not to jostle my arm. There was a crate just behind me and I leaned against it tiredly. Shock always made me sleepy.

Zer0 came to stand beside me, his glowing blade still out and pointing down at the ground. "I will stay too/guard for more Hyperion/make sure you stay awake."

"Yeah. Thanks." Staying awake would be important. Staying warm, too. Too bad Zer0 didn't give off body heat. "Anyone still got a blanket in their storage deck?" Since we'd stopped moving around so much, I kept my storage deck mostly empty. But maybe someone wasn't as organized as I was.

"Si!" Salvador rooted around until he pulled out a rough blanket. That didn't surprise me. There was probably still food sitting in there.

"Thanks. I'm gonna bleed all over it." I took it with the arm that still worked, draping it over myself as best I could. Brick loomed over me, and stooped to help tuck me in. There was an unreadable look in his dark eyes, but he didn't say anything.

He straightened. "Let's go!" he shouted, and everyone else began running for the hole in the side of the mountain. I watched them, willing my arm to stop hurting, stop bleeding. It didn't work.

Zer0 stood before me, impassive in his full-body armor. He undid all of Brick's hard work, pulling the blanket free to cut a couple of strips off the bottom with his sword. He bent down and used them to bind my arm. It was a rough bandage, but maybe it would keep me from bleeding out. As I readjusted the shortened blanket, a frowny face showed on his helmet. "I will find healing./You need to stop the bleeding/before you pass out."

I nodded. That was a fine idea. In just a little while the adrenaline would fade, and I'd really start regretting the choices I'd made for my life, unless my arm could be healed before then.

He ran down the way we had come. It was rare that loaders carried the Anshin serum on them, but sometimes an engineer would tuck something away on a 'bot for combat. We hadn't killed any people. Hyperion seemed to be running a little low on staff. Good, I thought viciously.

He appeared again beside me, holding out a glowing red needle. "Can you...?" I braced and he jammed it into my thigh. Doped up on adrenaline I barely felt it, and then the soothing rush of warmth from the serum spread through my veins. It wasn't enough to completely close my wounds, but at least my arm wasn't in danger of dripping through the bandage anymore. As my arm partially knit itself together, it ejected bits of shrapnel that landed on the ground with soft plinks.

We sat in silence. Zer0 didn't do small talk or niceties, really. He just looked at me, ensuring I didn't pass out before I could get home and get some better medical treatment. For my part I was too tired to chat, and just sat under the blanket, shivering occasionally. Shock is a bitch.

After a while, another explosion rocked the mountain, and I waited for our companions to come back down. They'd probably want to stay and drink themselves silly in Brick's big warehouse, but I needed more Anshin serum and some sleep. I didn't want to see Dr. Zed- ever- but there were a few vending machines around Sanctuary I could use that would work almost as well. Probably better.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: TOTALLY motivated by the announcement of the pre-sequel. Here's #2 for the day!**

* * *

**Gaige**

The first time I'd ever met Brick, I'd been a little intimidated by him. I mean, seriously. He's about two feet taller than me, he looks like he eats babies for breakfast, and he smashes through concrete. Like, just all the way through. I mean, not at one time, obviously, his arms aren't badass prosthetics, but... Through concrete.

Then I'd come to realize that he's basically just a giant teddy bear. Sure he gets angry, and he has his ragey moments, usually complete with smashing things into tiny pieces with his fists, but he's really just a big cuddle-monster.

Which was why I felt absolutely no hesitation at standing right in front of him, my finger pointed into, well, his belly button- the height thing- and yelling at him. "Oh my GOD, Brick, SHUT UP already!" I snapped. I just couldn't take it anymore. He'd been on about Maya all night long and I was just soooo over it. I got that he was worried about her. I was too. Maya's pretty awesome, other than her tendency to worry a little too much about people who she maybe doesn't need to worry about, whose names rhyme with 'baige' or whatever (oh come on, I've been drinking). She was FINE, though. She was going to go home, shoot herself up with some Anshin, and tuck herself into one of the beds at HQ. And Lilith would be there to make sure she was okay.

Brick jerked back like he'd been smacked or something. I hadn't even touched him! He looked a little hurt, too. In addition to being a cuddle-monster, he's also kinda sensitive. "I just want to know she's okay," he told me, sounding just a little sheepish.

"Right. Okay. So stop your monologue about how awesome she is and how badly her arm was hurt- I saw it happen. I know how badly her arm was hurt." There'd been blood dripping and I thought I saw her bone under her skin, and just... Ew. "Just pick up your friggin' ECHO and call her, already." I pointed to it, I could see where he had it clipped to his belt. "It's right friggin' there." I looked up at him for a second. "Or, if you're worried about waking her up or whatever, call Lilith. Lilith never sleeps."

That part sucked. Lilith was an insomniac. I was too, I spent a lot of time keeping her company while everyone else was sleeping.

He lifted his beer can and took a long drink instead. It looked so tiny in his huge paw, I had to bite back a giggle. Hard to come across as serious when you're giggling. Come ON, though. I'd thought that was pretty badass advice.

"Waitaminute, waitaminute, wait. A. Minute." I said, setting my own bottle down heavily with a glass clank. I was standing beside one of the old machines that made, I don't know, keychains or whatever, and it was the perfect height to use as a table. I continued, waving my hands around for emphasis. "Just a friggin' minute. Have you even talked to her at all since you straight-up mauled her in front of everyone?" He opened his mouth to answer me and I cut him right the fuck off. "And I don't just mean, 'Hey Slab, sure is a nice day,' or anything like that, I mean..." He ducked his head down and it was pretty obvious was the answer was. "Are you shitting me right now!?" Oh. My. GOD. It was pretty obvious to the rest of us that he had it pretty bad for her. I mean, everyone but Maya. She was clueless, probably something to do with chastity-obsessed Brothers or whatever. But he hadn't even TALKED to her about it?

I'd been drinking since we'd come down from the mountain and I was feeling pretty drunk. Not drunk enough, though, to know that he wasn't exactly being smart about this.

"Darlin'," Axton started placatingly, placing his hand on my shoulder as though he was going to steer me away from my tirade. He'd sneaked up behind me at some point from where he'd been over by the front door, drinking with Sal.

I shook him off. Oh no. Someone needed to talk some sense into the giant ass- and he really was being an ass. "Listen up, 'cause I'm only going to tell you this just once," I informed him carefully as I poked him square in the chest with one finger. Well, belly button. The height thing. "Although WHY I have to tell a grown-ass man this..." I straightened my hat and pulled myself up to my full height to lecture him. It didn't really do much, I was now just about the level of his... ribs. I felt better, though. "She ain't gonna know that you want to play hide-the-sausage with her unless you open your big, stupid mouth and tell her." Across the room, Sal spit his mouthful of drink on the floor and he burst into loud laughter. A soft groan told me Axton couldn't believe I'd just said that.

"You've spent the last little while doin' your friggin' best to make sure she knows she's just one of the Slabs, and you sure as hell haven't offered to screw me. Where's my, 'sure am happy we're alive,' tonsil-cleaning and dry-humping?" I looked around expansively, gesturing to the guys. "Anyone else get an invitation for a ride on the Slab-King's throne?" I paused. "Anyone?"

Sal had fallen over, he was laughing so hard. Sal was so awesome. He was my drinking buddy of choice, to be honest. Mordy drank too, but he got a little crankypants when he had a lot to drink, but Sal... Sal loved to laugh. And he was just about the same height as me, so I didn't feel like I might fall backwards trying to look up into his face to carry on a simple conversation. Especially when my sense of balance was gone.

Axton was looking at me like he couldn't believe the things that were coming out of my mouth. He was pretty, but sometimes I had to wonder how much he had going in underneath all that hair. He did have awesome hair, though. I kinda just wanted to run my fingers through it, see if it felt as good as it looked.

"So, what? Just call her and tell her I want to see all of her tattoos?" Brick asked sincerely, pulling my attention back to him. I'd almost forgotten about him in my ruminations on Axton's hair, but... Wait. He actually wanted an answer to the question. Why the fuck was a man his age asking me for advice on his love life? Like, friggin'... Seriously?

I shrugged, shaking my head, before picking up my bottle and having another drink. Oh, it tasted awful. Like DT's drip-pan. "Or tell her to show up and just start kissin' on her. Seemed to work pretty good last time." Yeah. She'd enjoyed that. Hadn't said a word the entire way back to Sanctuary, she'd just stood there with that far-away look in her eyes.

Axton gripped my arm- the fleshy one- hard enough that I couldn't shake him off this time. Strong hands. Probably something to do with the army or his turret. Roland'd had strong hands too. "I think you've had enough," he said, bodily pulling me away from my conversation and easily stealing my drink from my hand. And shaking me out of my thoughts of Roland. I missed Roland. Drinking made me miss Roland more sometimes.

"Axton, he's gonna friggin' THANK me," I protested, reaching past him for my bottle.

He was taller- longer arms- and he held it easily out of my reach. "Time to go home, darlin'," he said. "_You'll_ thank me tomorrow." I thought I heard him mutter, "And so will he," but I wasn't sure.

"Whatever. You gonna come back and make sure he's stops being stupid about the whole thing?" He didn't answer me, just kept moving me in the general direction of the door. "Not even gonna give me a chance to say goodbye?" I asked, turning around so that I at least wasn't walking backwards as he pulled me through the warehouse.

"You'll see Sal tomorrow, and I think you've said enough to Brick." He deposited my bottle on an empty crate as we passed it. Too far out of reach.

"Bye!" I yelled over my shoulder, but I'm not sure Sal heard me over how hard he was laughing. Brick was still standing where I'd left him, staring after me with a weird look on his face. Did that mean he was actually going to do it? Oh, I hoped he'd do it. Just get her up there, screw, put us all out of our misery.

I looked over at Axton, who was staring straight ahead with a very determined look on his face. "What are you, my boyfriend or something? I've had enough, now it's time to get me home?"

"Darlin', if I was your boyfriend, we'd be too busy fucking for you to yell at anyone." We had a long-standing arrangement of heavy flirting that went absolutely nowhere, that usually ended up with him getting the last word in. Mostly 'cause I think he had more practice with it than I did. And, yeah, I had absolutely nothing to say to that one. I was picturing his abs. Oh my god, those abs. He had a habit of working on his turret with no shirt on. Most of Pandora was hot, right, it made sense. His abs, and his back... And his shoulders...

I let Axton propel me down to the Fast-Travel station. The fresh air made me realize just how dizzy I was getting. The stars were starting to spin far above me, and the ground seemed really uneven under my feet. Thoughts were swimming to the surface of my mind, pushing past thoughts of shirtless Axton. "I don't know where my key is," I mumbled to him. I had my own house. I'm kinda an introvert. I mean, I like everyone else, but I need to have somewhere I can just go home to, and just kinda relax and be by myself. And it had been hard to stay in HQ after Roland had died, so I'd gotten myself a house.

To be completely fair, my key was probably somewhere in my storage deck, under all the ammo and my other hat, and the bottle of beer I kept in there just because it seemed like a good idea. I just knew that if I went digging through it, I was probably going to hurl. Looking down... Looking down meant I was probably going to fall on my ass. Or hurl. Or both.

"There's beds at Headquarters," he told me, just before we reached the Fast-Travel and reconstructed in Pierce Station.

"You gonna join me?" I asked. Any attempt at sexy was completely destroyed when the Fast-Travel made me hurl. And I may or may not have gotten some on his shoes. Ew. "Sorry," I apologized weakly. He pulled me towards HQ, and picked me up to carry me up the stairs. "You're pretty strong."

He looked down into my face and smirked, his expression lit up by the monitors in the next room. "You're not exactly heavy, you know." He set me down on one of the bottom bunks, and settled the rough sheet over me. Aw, he was tucking me in!

"Hey. Hey, Axton," I whispered loudly. I could see Maya fast asleep on one of the bunks and didn't want to wake her up. I could barely see his outline in the darkness, he was silhouetted from the back by Lilith's bright monitors. She was probably in there, working away. Or worrying away, more like. "You so pretty."

I heard him snicker. He totally wasn't laughing at me, he was just appreciating my awesometastic wit. "Get some sleep, darlin'," he told me. He sounded like he was trying not to laugh. What? I was TOTALLY being suave. Now that I wasn't... puking on him anymore. Yeah. I probably wasn't going to be able to pull off suave that night. Puke kinda... Yeah. Kills the mood.

"Come on, I'm not even tired." Sleep? I didn't need sleep! I was the most powerful girl in the...


	6. Chapter 6

**Maya**

I dropped my ECHO to the surface of the table in front of me. I needed a break. I rubbed my eyes tiredly, dropping my elbow to the table to rest my forehead against my hand. It was probably time for some more coffee. I moved my face until my chin was resting on my palm, and leaned over to check the contents of my mug. It wasn't empty, which meant it was more-than-likely cold, and probably not something I really wanted to drink. To be perfectly honest, I wasn't really sure it was even coffee, but I'd learned a long time ago that you just didn't ask where things came from on Pandora, because you more-than-likely just didn't want to know.

"You been staring at that thing non-stop for a week now." Mordecai's familiar voice broke into my thoughts, and I turned in my chair to face him. I hadn't heard him come in, but I'd been pretty engrossed- and he moved really quietly. He was lounged in the doorway, arms folded across his chest as he leaned against the door frame. His eyes were hidden behind his goggles, like they normally were, but there was a set to his face that usually wasn't there. He wasn't grim, he wasn't pissy... Was he... happy?

I nodded. "I'm reading about sirens. I mean, I'm trying to. Most of what Jack had is on Angel, and everything I'm reading just makes me more and more glad that he's dead." I'd come to Pandora to learn more about sirens, and it was getting a little frustrating that I hadn't found anything new yet. Jack had made endless accounts of his daughter, but the way he wrote about her... When she'd been young, he was quite tender and affectionate. The older she'd gotten, though, the more he spoke of her as a tool instead of a family member. Cold, impersonal, the same way he talked about Blake- who turned up surprisingly frequently in the ECHO logs. The rage I'd felt the first few days had smoldered into simple exhaustion with all of it. He was dead, I kept reminding myself. Thank all that was good in the world, he was dead.

He stared at me for a few seconds without saying anything, then gestured down at my ECHO. "Want a break? I could use some company."

I stretched my arms up over my head, lacing my fingers together, then rested them on top of my hair. I could see the purple-splotched tip of his sniper rifle poking up over the top of his shoulder. Truthfully, I was pretty desperate for a good excuse for a break... And him wearing his sniper rifle promised an active break. I'd been hunched over my ECHO for far too long.

And Mordecai getting out at all, that was a reason to be happy, too. I couldn't remember the last time he'd actually left Sanctuary, not since we'd all got back after killing Jack.

But... I'd promised Lilith I would stay put and hold down the fort while she went out and visited Roland's grave. She hadn't specifically told me that's what she was leaving to go and do, but I knew. She went every couple of weeks now, just took off and left me to take care of things in Sanctuary.

I sighed, letting my arms drop heavily back to my sides, feeling just a little deflated. "I can't. I really want to, but I can't. Where are you headed?"

"That's too bad," he answered. "I'm going to hit the Wildlife Exploitation Preserve."

I grinned despite myself. "You're going to see if there's another Bloodwing?"

"Yeah." Despite the simple answer, he looked almost excited. This was officially the happiest expression I'd ever seen on his face. "Figured you might want to come with me, since you're the one who found her."

I wanted to. I really, really wanted to. But I couldn't. I'd promised Lilith that I would stick around and keep an eye on things, and she needed me here. I could easily shift the responsibility to Salvador or Axton, but with everything else she was dealing with, she needed to know that she could rely on me.

Just then, Gaige bounced in past Mordecai, and stopped in the middle of the room. She looked back and forth between us, and started to smile herself, picking up on our excitement although she couldn't have known why. "Whaaaaat's going on?" she asked, bright eyes flicking between the two of us like she was watching some kind of sport.

I raised my eyebrow at Mordecai and lifted one shoulder in a shrug. It was his place to tell, if he chose.

"I'm headin' to the Preserve to see if there's an egg cloned from Bloodwing," he told her, rubbing at the back of his neck. He was grinning, though, like the more he talked about it, the more excited he got.

She squealed. "Holy shit! That's badASS!"

"Do you want to come?" he asked drily.

"YES," she practically shouted. "Just let me get my guns and grenades and HOLY SHIT MORDY, BLOODWING!" She threw her arms around him for just a moment before rushing back out of the room, and I watched the doorway in silence for a moment, slightly bemused as her footsteps thudded back down the stairs. She moved around a lot like a tiny tornado- had I ever had that much energy?

"Good luck," I offered him, not just referring to Bloodwing. Gaige was... awfully enthusiastic sometimes.

He smiled. "Thanks," he said, turning to leave.

She'd been pretty broken up when Bloodwing had been killed. She'd gotten to Pandora separately from the rest of us, and she'd spent some time in Tundra Express, just her and Mordecai and Bloodwing. And they'd saved her, too? Something like that. I was a little unclear on the details, but I knew she'd been more familiar with Bloodwing than the rest of us were.

"Hey, Mordecai." I waited until his attention had come back to me before continuing. "Has Lilith talked to you lately?"

"We talk almost every day. Or are you talkin' about something specific?" He turned to face me and folded his arms again, watching me impassively.

"Yeah. She's really not doing so well right now. Everything is starting to settle down, and I think she's finally got enough time to deal with the whole Roland-dying-being-tortured thing." Not only had the man she loved been abruptly killed in front of her, she'd then been kidnapped and tortured by that sadistic bastard. And then, when she'd come back, she'd gone off the eridium, so that had to be messing with her, too.

"Not a word." He shook his head. "I know she's gone out for a bit, I'll try and call her later. Hopefully I'll have some good news for her, I know that would cheer her up a bit."

He was probably right. "Yeah. Thanks." I smiled again, although not quite as brightly as I had just a little bit ago. "Good luck."

"Thanks." And then he was gone.

I turned back to my ECHO, staring at it for a few moments before shaking my head and pushing it away from me. I'd had more than enough of Jack for one sitting. I'd had more than enough of Jack for a lifetime. Anything useful was going to be hidden away in between self-important ramblings of how wonderful he must be to have fathered a siren, and how much of a pain in the ass dealing with her powers was. I turned it off. If I wasn't quite as dedicated to doing this research as I was, I probably would have given up on it a long time ago.

I sighed. I was really worried about Lilith. Today marked exactly two months since Roland had been killed. Lilith had gotten even less sleep than she usually did, I could tell by the dark smudges under her eyes. But she was so stubborn, I'd practically had to force her to take the day off. What else could I do for her? What else would she let me do for her?

I picked up my coffee cup. She wouldn't talk to anyone, not even me, and we were becoming close. Every time I tried, she would change the subject and bring up Crimson Raiders business, or ask me how my research was coming. Mordecai had just said she wasn't talking to him, and I assumed she wasn't talking to Brick... Maybe it was time for me to talk to him and see if he could get through to Lilith.

I hesitated and took a sip of my coffee. Cold. I put the mug back down. I knew Tannis would have more sitting in the coffee pot downstairs- she drank the stuff like water. I could get a refill after I ECHO'd Brick. That would be my reward.

I hadn't talked to Brick since... Since he'd gone back to Thousand Cuts to take over leadership of his Slabs again. He'd kinda stared at me when he'd said goodbye, and there was an awkward not-quite-hug, and then he'd just gone. It was a little easier without him around Headquarters all the time. He had a way of taking over every room he was in, and with things being just a little uncomfortable between us, it just seemed a little easier to breathe. Of course, he hadn't seemed affected at all. Lilith had assured me that it wasn't the type of thing he did often, but... Maybe it was just right place, right time, and I needed to grow up and get the hell over it.

Still I hesitated. I was being silly, I told myself sternly and picked the ECHO back up. I didn't need a reward to make a simple ECHO call. I was a grown-ass adult. I squared my shoulders and called Brick. "Brick, are you there?"

"Slab!" he familiar bass voice greeted me warmly after just a few seconds, and I closed my eyes for a moment. I could do this.

"Have you talked to Lilith?" I ran my finger along the handle to my mug, tracing its curve.

"Yes..." Coy had never been a word I would have associated with Brick, but that was the only word I could come up with for his tone.

"About Roland, I mean?"

There was a moment of silence, and when he spoke again, his voice was back to normal. "No. She okay?"

"No. She's not. And she won't talk to me, and she won't talk to Mordecai. She's not getting a lot of sleep, she's barely eating. Some of that is probably because she's off the eridium, but I'm really worried about her, Brick."

She'd given all of the eridium she'd had to Tannis for her 'experiments.' Lilith said she'd been pumped full of enough of it to last her a lifetime.

"I'll try and talk to her. She's stubborn, though, always has been."

"Thanks, Brick." Silence. Seconds turned into an uncomfortable minute. "I'll talk to you later." I ended the call and picked up my mug. Still cold, I rediscovered after having a drink. I was being silly, I scolded myself again. Here we were, nearly two months after the one and only time he'd kissed me, and still even the sound of his voice made me do things like forget my coffee.

I shook my head, trying to clear it, and picked up my mug to head downstairs to refresh my drink.


	7. Chapter 7

**Gaige**

He was waiting for me at Pierce Station. I'd grabbed everything I thought I'd need before heading there myself, which meant grenades, shield, and a full assortment of guns and ammo- even though there probably wasn't going to be anyone at the Preserve. Not only had we gone through there and killed everyone once, but we'd gone back a second time and helped the animals get some awesome revenge on the remaining staff. We were obliterating Hyperion's forces on Pandora, and they didn't seem too excited about sending in replacements that would probably also just get killed. Their loss. Well, ours kinda too. It was getting a little boring just hanging out around Sanctuary.

As soon as Mordy saw me, he punched in the code for the Preserve, and in just a couple of seconds we were reconstructing there. It looked just the same as it always did. Cliffs, grass- there weren't even any stalkers left on the main path, they'd all been killed or whatever. I'd feel worse about it if they weren't trying to eat my face off.

I was probably bouncing a little as I walked, but whatever. I was SUPER excited. Bloodwing! And maybe Mordy would stop being so cranky too. When I'd first met him, he was drinking or whatever, but he was still mostly pleasant to be around. Taught me how to shoot and everything. And then he lost Bloodwing, and he just got kinda... Angry all the time. Took it out on the rest of us, whether or not we deserved it. Which we usually didn't.

He stayed beside me as we walked between the rocks, towards all the buildings. "You're not gonna go up to your hidey-hole and back me up?" I asked, pointing up to the cave he'd used the first time I'd been there.

"No, I want to be the one to find her." He pointed to the storage container held loosely in one hand. "Gonna get up on the roof, though. Can you hold this so I can climb up?"

I nodded. That made total sense. "You can't do it one-handed?" I teased, and he smiled and shook his head, which made me grin. Well, grin more. I hadn't stopped grinning since he told me he was going to find Bloodwing. And he hadn't smiled when I'd teased him since he'd lost Bloodwing. It was turning out to be a pretty damn good day

He handed me the container and pulled himself easily onto the roof, watching me through his sight as I all-but-skipped through the loading area. I was EXCITED! There were a couple of loaders clanking around, badly in need of some TLC. I almost felt sorry for them- I'd NEVER let Deathtrap get that raggedy-looking. Mordy killed one with a single bullet to its "eye," and I digistructed DT to take care of the other one. Easy as pie.

We headed through the holding pens, they looked like they'd been abandoned for a long time. He kept himself high above me, and I kept my shotgun out just in case something popped out to eat my face, but nothing did.

When we entered the actual building part, he swung himself down off the roof to land lightly on the ground, taking the container back and falling in step beside me again. He was moving just a little faster. He seemed to know exactly where he was going, and I was happy to just follow him through the place. I was SO excited. It had about broken my heart when Bloodwing had died, I was SUPER glad he might be able to get her back.

He came to a door and paused for a few seconds in front of it, staring at it in silence. So this was it. This would be where he would find out whether or not there was another bird waiting for him, and I could tell he didn't want to have come all this way just to be disappointed again.

I rested my hand on his arm and he jumped like he'd forgotten I was there. "You okay?"

He nodded, and I could see him swallow. And then he took a deep breath and pushed the door open. It was a laboratory of some sort, a long room filled with computers and isolets, and a single cryo chamber, still on and humming. "Madre de dios," he breathed. "There she is."

I stayed by the door, watching as he went over to open the cryo chamber. He drew out a single large egg, staring down at it for a few seconds before, slipping it carefully into the heated container that he'd set on the worktable beside the cryo chamber. I realized I was grinning like an idiot. There may or may not have been tears.

He took off the green goggles he always wore, and brushed at his own eyes for a moment before setting the container on the floor and looking at me. "Thank you." I couldn't remember ever seeing his dark eyes before, eyes that were just a little bit shinier than eyes usually were. Then again, mine probably were too.

I couldn't stop smiling, not that I really wanted to. I ran over and wrapped my arms around him in just the BIGGEST hug. "I'm so happy for you, Mordy," I replied. I'd never seen him this happy in all the time I'd known him.

He hesitated for a second before wrapping his arms around me in return, holding me against him. He was stronger than he looked- then again, with how much he was all wrapped up, it was hard to see exactly what he was hiding under all of those layers.

Finally I stepped back, rubbing at my eyes again. "What now?" I asked. "When does she hatch?"

He put his goggles back on, adjusting them into just the right place. He looked more like himself with the goggles on. "He. They're born as males. Should be early in the morning. I'm staying here- make sure he hatches okay and we bond properly."

"Here? Like... Right here?" I looked around the lab. "Doesn't exactly say comfy or cozy." Beds on Pandora sucked, almost without exception, but even the bunk back in HQ looked more comfortable than trying to sleep anywhere in here.

"Nah, up in the cave again. I already got it all set up for us, we should be fine for a little while."

"Morning, huh?" That was a long time off. "So... you want company for a while?" It wasn't like I had anything else going on, and it looked like he'd maybe be a little bit better company now.

He seemed a little surprised that I'd asked. "Sure," he answered after a bit. "That'd be great."

He picked up the container, and we went back out of the complex-thing and up to where he'd lived the last time we were there. His bed was still there and he shook out the blanket before sitting down on it, holding the container tenderly in his lap.

I went to sit beside him, lifting up the blanket so I could sit underneath it. It was just a little chilly in there, probably because we were high up and close to the water.

I could feel him watching me. "I heard you yelled at Brick."

Wrinkling my nose, I nodded. "Yeah. I was a little drunk and he was being dumb. Did... Did he tell you?"

Mordy chuckled. "Yeah. I told him that he needed to make his move already, and he said you'd already yelled at him about it."

"Yeah." I shook my head. "And yet... Still no move. He's hopeless. She's all... Pining away after him like she wants him to charge in and sweep him off her feet or something. Seriously, someone needs to knock their heads together. Or, like, staple their hips together or something."

"I'll hold 'em down, you staple. What about you? Are you upset because the whole world's forgotten you're a girl?"

"Is that what she was going on about? Glad I booked out of there." I wrinkled my nose. She'd gotten more action than I'd seen in... I didn't want to think about, and I DEFINITELY didn't want to hear her bitch about it. I loved Maya, but... I had my limits. "Officially? No comment. Unofficially, I haven't been laid in, like, TWO. Years."

"Me neither."

Really? I turned and looked up at him. "Really?" I repeated, out loud this time. I had a hard time believing it. "Well, why friggin' not? You're pretty hot for an old guy. You know, tall, the mysterious badass thing, the voice thing."

He coughed. "Thanks a lot! I'm not that old." I kept my opinion to myself. I deserved points for that. He looked at me for a second- well, I thought he was looking at me. He could have been looking at the wall or whatever. Stupid goggles. "Not much older than Roland, anyway."

I looked back at the floor. I had nothing to say to that. Apparently he knew- I shouldn't have been surprised. Everyone seemed to know everything.

"Voice thing?" he asked after another couple of seconds, probably when he realized I wasn't going to say anything.

"Yeah." I refused to look at him again. "The whole accent, deep voice, sounds like aural sex?"

"Oral sex?" He looked faintly amused.

"Aural." I pointed to my ear. I could feel my face heat up like I was blushing sixteen shades of red. I shook my head. "Just... Nevermind." Well. THAT was awkward. Maybe hanging around here wasn't such a hot idea. "You got enough food and everything, or do you want me to get you anything from Sanctuary?" There. That was something safe to talk about.

He let me change the topic. "We're set. Might have to get some fresh meat for him in a few days, but there's stuff out here to hunt."

"Okay. If you do need anything, though, let me know. ECHO or whatever, and I can bring it out here."

I could feel him staring at me again. Mordy was very intense, and he stared very intensely. "Gettin' bored in Sanctuary?" He didn't exactly miss much. When he was sober enough to notice, that was.

"SO bored. So bored. There's nothing to do there. There's only so much screwing with DT I can do. Lilith and Tannis have the whole training thing under control. Maya's got her research, Axton is trying to fuck his way through the entire female population of Pandora." Well, except me. I thought about it for a minute. Why the hell not me? He was hot, I was reasonably cute. We got along and everything. I could definitely think of worse ways to spend an afternoon. We'd sort of come to a flirting stalemate a long time ago, but why did it have to stay that way?

"You okay?" His question pulled me out of my thoughts.

"Yeah. Just bored. I think I'm drinking too much." I wrinkled my nose. "I am WAY too young to have a drinking problem." I was also way too young to be able to go shot for shot with Sal. I mean, I couldn't... But I was getting close. Well, closer. Closer than someone from a civilized planet really should.

"Trust me, you're always too young to have a drinking problem." Yeah, I guess he'd know.

From the looks- and smell- of things, he was completely sober, though. "You off the booze?"

He nodded. "Can't drink and take care of someone, not even a bird."

That made sense. I was glad, too. It sucked, watching him waste away like that in Moxxi's. I motioned to the container still cradled in his lap with my chin. "What are you going to name him? Bloodwing again?"

"Nah, I already did that once. Don't want to... you know." He shrugged. "I'm not tryin' to replace her. There'll never be another Bloodwing."

Yeah, I got that. I had a hamster once, when I was little. It died, of course, hamsters live tragically short lives. Probably too short to be a good pet for a kid. Dad wanted to get me another one right away 'cause I was so sad about it, but I didn't want to replace him. "Got any ideas? Fluffy's a good name." I turned to look at him and grinned to show I was just kidding. Mostly.

"Fluffy? That's not badass!" I couldn't really read his expression, but I was pretty sure he knew I was kidding.

I giggled. "That's the point, right? You could be all, 'Here, Fluffy,' and the people you were killing wouldn't take him seriously, and then he would just swoop out of the air and decapitate them and shit."

He was looking down at me. "You could rename Deathtrap. Fluffytrap?"

"I could. It would be more embarrassing to be killed by something named, 'Fluffytrap.'" I grinned and shook my head. "Claptrap probably wouldn't like it, something about the indignities against robot-kind..."

"I was thinking Talon."

I nodded, thinking it over. "Talon's a good name. It's a good cute name, he'll be all, cuddly little Talon. And then when he grows up, he'll be all, 'Rawr, I'm Talon the badass!'" I made little clawing motions with my hands. "That could totally work."

"Rawr?" The corners of his lips were moving like he was trying not to laugh at me.

"Well, I'm not exactly built to make that screechy noise. Rawr's pretty close!" I tugged on the blanket until he moved enough that I could tuck it up under my chin. "Thanks for bringing me with you."

"Yeah, no problem."


End file.
